141 paseo alto

rosi comes home from the university and goes straight to the kitchen, with pelusa on her heels. pelusa's claws click and scrape on the tile and i can hear her panting from upstairs, where i am prone on the bed with julio cortezar's short stories and a dictionary. luisa is half asleep, and only moans, tengo hombre, as a parting note when i head downstairs.

while rosie pours water into the carafes, i take six plates down from the cupboard (carefully), and carry them to the kitchen table. they make plate sounds, the clatter that plates always make, even when you are holding them carefully, that, to my ear, just sounds like a plea: smash us, smash us, we came from sand, please smash us, let us go. oh god. i place each one carefully before a chair, straighten the tablecloth, step over pelusa, and open the sliding glass door in case she needs to piss under the mesquite. she does.

in the kitchen, rosie is opening cans of tuna. she has explained to me that tuna digests very fast, which is why we always eat it with heavier things like tostadas, crema, avocado, frijoles. she buys it packed in water. she leaves the cans next to the sink and the tray she serves it from until carlos and jose get home. i take the valentina out of the cupboard and put it next to the water and the napkins on the center of the table. then tajin, then limon, then avocadoes (2).

the monster, as we call carlos' enormous red truck, growls intothe drive, and rosie shakes the tuna from the cans onto the serving tray. maria! she calls. luisa! jose comes in and immediately opens the refrigerator for a hotdog, of which he awards ten per cent to pelusa, who is coming undone. carlos kisses rosie, kisses the girls as they come in, asks me how swimming was. bien, i say, and smile. the temperature of the water? warm. hace mucho calor, he says, and it must be true because there are two beads of sweat tracing alternate routes from his hairline to his neck. he points through the ceiling to the sky. va llover en la noche, he tells me. or before, i think. it smells like rain and electricity, but there are no rumbles yet. the sy is an empty stomach, but quiet.